brown eyes
by mirajens
Summary: Grandma Eileen babysits.


**note: ** you ever just get fucked over by that last fairy tail episode and want some good vibes for actual goddess eileen? same

Important to note that this is a companion piece to **wordslinger**'s **Seigrain in Lutalica**. I don't think you have to read it to understand this, but it would be nice and super fun if you do.

* * *

**i. **

In a walk-in closet bigger than most New York studios, Eileen Belserion stood, contemplating a slate gray Armani suit and an off-white Pierre Cardin dress that would go with the new shoes she just bought. The dress was gorgeous, but was it practical for the day? The shoes were skinny as toothpicks, and the dress felt like a boa constrictor after two hoagies.

It would have to be the Armani.

The doorbell rang. It was Erza with the baby, or probably Jellal. Eileen hoped it was the former.

**ii.**

Her assistant showed up just as Eileen finished kicking Jellal out, settling the baby into the carrier, and rushing to do her makeup, and wearing her suit. She didn't miss the Pierre Cardin at all.

Marissa, the assistant, looked up from cooing at Alex. "Good morning, Eileen. We're a bit late-"

"Yes, I know. I had a fashion crisis. My purse and files are on the ottoman in the living room."

"I'll get those. The driver is waiting downstairs."

Eileen truly loved the convenience of a Type A assistant, especially in the mornings, just before 11am. Eileen approached the baby, who fussed in his carrier.

"Are you ready to go, my love? We'll have breakfast when we get there, just you and me, I promise."

**iii.**

Arriving at the tower where she worked was always a bit of a production, with all the people kissing her ass, all the security, and all the people whose asses she had to kiss back. Eileen didn't care for it today. She took the baby and headed straight to her office. It was his feeding time, and Eileen didn't want to disrupt the schedule, or else Erza would never let Eileen have the baby again. And Eileen didn't want that. She barely saw her grandchildren or her daughter as it was.

"Marissa, bump my 10 to the next hour. I really need to feed Alex and myself." Eileen said to her assistant, who might have scurried to match pace, but it was with the grace of some graceful animal.

"I'll work on that. Do you want me to order you the usual?"

"Yes, please. And Marissa? No one comes near my office making _any_ sort of loud, or even inside voice-level noise. Got it?"

"Of course."

Satisfied, Eileen went inside to feed her youngest grandchild.

**iv.**

Alex took the bottle well, and Eileen wasn't surprised. He always let her feed him and cuddle him whenever she came over to visit.

"You're such a good baby. So quiet and kind. You take after your mother in that sense, because she would let herself be fed same as you, just looking at me with those big eyes. I'm sure you take after her."

For a moment, she felt bad for Jellal. But then, Eileen remembered that she let him marry Erza so, all way forgiven. Erza could have chosen worse. It wasn't that Eileen _hated_ Jellal. She just thought he was clumsy and needy and that his job kind of didn't make any sense. All mother-in-laws were allowed to be kind of cunty towards their son-in-laws.

The baby finished the bottle, which pleased Eileen.

"Okay, little boy. Want to come to my war room talk?"

**v.**

War room talks were something the other upper management wanted to implement to boost morale and productivity. Eileen thought it was bullshit, but she was overpowered. Men. They really think they had shit all figured out.

She stood in the middle of a U of her department: everyone from upper management to coffee-running interns. Alex was in her hands, and as was habit, Eileen rocked back and forth gently. It's what she had done when Erza was a baby but it probably wasn't a good idea with Alex because right when she started asking the crowd for suggestion she heard and felt the baby spit up on her shoulder, and maybe a bit on her hair, too.

Eileen continued to ask for any input. The room was dead quiet.

One of the team leaders began to raise his hand. "Ma'am? You have some-"

He was silenced by four different people.

"It's just baby puke." Eileen handed Alex to Marissa, who swapped him with a pack of wet wipes from the diaper bag. Eileen worked the floor again while wiping spit up off her Armani.

All in the day.

**vi.**

It was time to go back to Eileen's office for Alex's noon-time nap. Eileen kept beddings for the children in her office in case they ever came to visit, and regularly had them laundered since both were probably allergic (Jellal's influence, probably. Eileen bred a tough child) to dust.

Eileen didn't trust anyone else to lay the sheets over her sofa bed and to dress the small pillows that the baby always ignored, but she kept anyway. In his carrier, Alex yawned.

Eileen went to him, picked him up gently, with the ease of someone who had loved babies, had gotten used to holding them. She laid him flat on the sofa bed and waited for sleep to claim him.

Eileen, tired from her own work day/babysitting duty combo, lay her upper torso on the sofa. Her grandson looked at her with the same brown eyes Eileen had cherished since she was cut open and Erza was pulled out of her.

Eileen raised a hand to stroke Alex's head. Needy, like his father, the familiar warmth put him to bed.

Eileen let her aching eyes close for a nap. Just a little bit.

**vii.**

Surprisingly, it was Erza who came to pick her son up before Eileen's day could end. Erza walked to the sofa where Alex still slept, joined by her mother.

"How was he? We worried-" Erza and Jellal didn't let anyone else babysit their eldest child until she was at least a year old. Alex was only six months old.

"It was all fine, darling. I told you it would be." Eileen gently sank into the sofa beside the sleeping baby and smoothed her hand down his downy locks of hair. "He was an angel, Erza. You should have seen him. He ate, and slept and barely cried. Even changing his diapers was hassle-free."

Erza stayed standing, watching her son sleep just before she had to pack him up into the carrier again. "That's because you only do it for 8 hours, mom." But Erza said it with a smile. "We really couldn't find a good sitter on such short notice. I didn't want to impose."

"Erza, you're acting like this is my first rodeo. I love having the kids if you and Jellal aren't able to watch them, and even if you two just want to have some time to yourselves, I wouldn't complain. In fact, you deprive me of them too much, you know?"

"You're always welcome to visit, mom. And I'll tell Jellal to put you up as the top babysitter to dial. He-"

"—Doesn't want to impose. I got it. But you should impose anyway."

"Thank you, mom."

While Erza quietly and slowly picked her son up and fastened him into the carrier, Eileen cleaned up the beddings.

"Are you ready? I'll walk you down to the parking area." Eileen hoisted the diaper/bottle bag onto her shoulder and opened the door for Erza and the baby.

They boarded the executive elevator.

Eileen sank her nails into the meat of her palms. Her anxiety had been riding on this conversation all day. She knew her window was limited. This was exactly why there had been little to no visits since Alex was born, or why Eileen had to hear news about her daughter from Jellal. She needed answers, and she needed them now.

"You still haven't texted me back about what your psychologist is saying. Are you on medication? I can come with you to appointments, if you want. Or watch the kids." When Erza's lip thinned into a line, Eileen felt her desperation surge just a little bit. "You know, I can help a bit. I experienced this myself when you were first born."

Erza's voice sounded like she was gritting her teeth. "Mom, please. I don't want to talk about it yet."

Eileen saw the window closing; could feel her heart breaking. "Can I do anything to help?"

"Can you get two kids and a pet clinic off my hands?"

Eileen didn't say anything. Erza didn't, either.

The Elevator dinged. It was at Eileen's parking for herself and her guests. They found Erza's car easily, a red SUV that used to be a vintage coupe until she had her first child. Eileen waited for Erza to secure the carrier to the child seat and for her to stow away the diaper bag.

Erza turned to face Eileen, the guilt clear as day on her face.

Before her daughter could say anything, she didn't want to say, Eileen gave Erza a hug, tight as that dress he planned to wear. "You don't need to say anything to me. I'm just here, love. I'll do anything you ask of me. I'm just a call away if it's all too much."

Erza, nodding, pulled away from the hug, those beautiful brown eyes that Eileen had stared at in Alex a while ago, glistening with tears.

That was as much emotion as the two of them were comfortable with. Erza walked to the driver's door, and Eileen stepped back so that she wouldn't smell like exhaust fumes. Erza honked the horn twice before driving off.

Eileen composed herself in the elevator, thinking of her daughter in sweatpants and with a faraway look in her eyes.

**viii.**

Eileen finished her work around 8 PM, and was in a car back to her home by 8:30.

Traffic was at a crawl, but it was made just a little bit sweeter by the photo message Erza sent of Alex having a bath, a toothless smile on his little face. Below, _Erza scrawled, Alex misses grandma!_

It felt like an olive branch.


End file.
